abattoir
by kangeiko
Summary: It's not a Pyrrhic victory if it doesn't matter. neosmith UST


abattoir  
   
  
summary: It's not a Pyrrhic victory if it doesn't matter. 

pairing: neo/smith UST

feedback: welcome

notes: written before 'revolutions', so now an a/u. also, not betaed. Must stop doing that soon.

  
  
*****  
  
It wasn't really a Pyrrhic victory. Not when the cost did not matter. Not even when it did matter, when it started to pile up.

  
It's not Pyrrhic if you don't care about it one or the other.

  
So they caught them, eventually, and bound their wrists and ankles. Ribbons at the wrists, firewalls at the ankles. But they were not to know that. They'd find out if they tried to escape, soon enough, peace take it.

  
They dragged them on the ground, over the rough stones of the walkway, over the smooth tarmac of the carpark, over the grass on the public green. Small curious children paused in their diversions to watch as they were taken away in that locked, guarded van. There were bars on the windows; black glass to stop the light escaping. But it didn't matter.

  
It's not Pyrrhic if it doesn't matter.

  
The bonds at their wrists were mere ribbons to the curious eyes of the children; they blinked and rubbed their faces and chirped to each other as small  
insignificants are wont to do. And it didn't matter. Honour bindings - with a filament of explosive wire woven through. Honour bindings. One tug, and both your hands would fall off.  
  
But the small children need not know that.  
  
They placed them quite carefully inside the van and took the bindings off. They put metal cuffs on them and looped the ribbons thrice around each resisting head. But how much can a head resist, really? One tug and it would tumble down, blood on the seats. So they stayed silent.  
  
It wasn't a journey; not the one that the children thought it would be, in any case. There wasn't really anywhere to go with their prize. No red pill for them; no vats and wakefulness and a mouth full of bile and dead children fed through a tube into your very soul. No: these would stay here, one way or the other. But what to do with them in the meantime?  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory, you must understand, if you don't care.  
  
So they kept them in the van, and another van – much bigger - came along to collect their dead and take them away to be burnt. In another world, on a cold ship full of metal and the bright flash of the flickering neon lights, their other bodies would be liquefied and fed to the dead.   
  
Not in a vat. All done very neatly. Voluntarily. And what was the difference?  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory, you must remember. It's not a Pyrrhic victory if it doesn't matter.   
  
The van came to a stop outside of town on a long stretch of empty road. It was easiest this way; minimize the number of passers-by that might appear. Minimize the threat by minimum exposure.  
  
And it's nice not to have witnesses.  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory, he repeated to himself as he took charge of the prisoners. They gazed up at him with guileless brown eyes; the very model of innocence and normality. It's not a Pyrrhic victory, he said again as that familiar smirk came back; the lazy drop of the eyes and slow cat-lick smile on all the faces, in unison. Like mirrors had been set up around them; trick of the light.  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory if it doesn't matter. It's not a Pyrrhic victory if there are no witnesses to let the world know.  
  
And here they were: the survivors of their desperate battle. And how many free men and women would be taken away by that other van, to be burnt on the pyre of their dreams? Different ages and genders and races and religions, all in one large pile in the middle of nowhere - because if they did not truly exist, and this place did not truly exist, then were they really dead? - and flames, flames eating them.  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory, although Morpheus was there, nameless and faceless. It's not a Pyrrhic victory, although Trinity was there, and Cypher had been there before and was now gone, and Link would join Tank and Dozer and there wasn't anyone left from his own ship. Just him.  
  
And this man, in front of him, looking at him with those familiar liquid brown eyes.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Anderson," a union of voices, perhaps eight of them left. Eight, from thousands.  
  
And then there were seven. And six. And five. And -  
  
But he had never been truly there, and the bodies started piling up. An old woman, carrying shopping bags. A young man, minidisk player still tucked into his pocket. A little girl, God help him, barely ten years old, with that same bullet hole in her head. Bugged. Bugged like he had been. Bugged and taken and abandoned and now she was dead and there was only one left, and Neo forced himself to breathe.  
  
"Are there more of you?"  
  
"The best thing about being me, Mister Anderson -" and how solitary his voice now sounded, when Neo was used to listening to a choir - "is that there are so many of me."  
  
Shake of head. Not what he wanted to know. It was a repeat of before. Next to him, a few of the ragged survivors bared teeth in a triumphant grimace. Maybe before, there had been more. Not now. Not after this. They had won. How many more could there be?  
  
"No. How many are left? Do you know?"  
  
"Humanity is a disease. And I -" that low, pleasing voice slowed; stopped. And Smith looked puzzled. "I -"  
  
There was nothing there. Nothing.   
  
And after so long, after a multitude of 'him's, there was finally nothing left. Just the one.   
  
And he was afraid.  
  
"Are there more?" And Neo leaned in and brushed back the hair from Smith's face. The skin beneath his fingers trembled and retreated, almost independently of the wearer's intent.  
  
All alone now, and even this body was deserting. What was left? What could possibly be done now?  
  
"Neo? What do we do with him?" At his side, there was the lustful smell of revenge.  
  
And Neo rocked back on his heels and waited. There wasn't anything left to do.  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory, he told himself as the program that had been Agent Smith started to unravel.  
  
The body shuddered and fell to the ground and tried to escape, to regroup, to absorb the nearest body to him. The anklelet - such a small, pretty thing, incongruous over the trouser leg - did not allow it. Firewall. Nowhere left to run.  
  
And Smith looked up at him with those familiar eyes, full of confusion and pain. "What's happening?"  
  
And since when did Smith use contractions?  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory, Neo told himself. He knelt on the ground and wrapped his arms around that shuddering body, not real, not there, not truly dying, and waited. All around him stood the bare few survivors of this last, pointless battle, all watching, all waiting. He had not bothered to learn their names.  
  
It's not a Pyrrhic victory, Neo told himself, again and again, as the last being that had known Thomas Anderson turned to blood and flesh and tears in his arms.  
  
And as Trinity and Morpheus were piled one on top of the other, bodies without beginning and end, Neo crouched on the ground and felt the Matrix shudder and expel the exile that had been Agent Smith.   
  
The sun hid behind a cloud in its descent, casting long red shadows on the spill of blood.  
  
*  
  
fin


End file.
